Dentist ordered to stay away from 'other woman'

Woman who ran over husband charged with his murder

LISA TEACHEY and RUTH RENDON, Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle

Published 5:30 am, Friday, July 26, 2002

A dentist accused of running over her husband several times and parking her Mercedes-Benz on his body was ordered today to have no contact with the woman she thought was having an affair with her husband.

State District Judge Carol Davies said Clara Harris' $30,000 bond would be revoked if she tried to contact the woman or went within 200 feet of the woman's home or business.

Harris is charged with murder in the death of her husband David Lynn Harris. Davies found there was probable cause to hold Harris on the charge.

Clara Harris appeared in court Friday dressed in a stylish black pants suit with her hair neatly swept back at the nape of her neck.

It was quite a different appearance from the angry woman witnesses said confronted David Harris and Gail Bridges, a woman who used to work for the orthodontist, at the Nassau Bay Hilton Wednesday night.

Prosecutor Mia Magness told Davies that Clara Harris went to the hotel and confronted her husband and Bridges in the lobby. An altercation ensued and the three were escorted outside by hotel employees.

In the parking lot David Harris walked the woman to her vehicle as Clara Harris got into her silver Mercedes-Benz then plowed the car into David Harris, propelling his body 25 feet, Magness said.

Magness said Clara Harris then crossed over two grassy medians and ran over her husband three more times before putting the car into reverse and backing over his body and leaving the car parked on him.

Magness said David Harris' teen-age daughter was in the car with Clara Harris.

Defense attorney George Parnham said he was not prepared to concede any of the facts in the charge.

"There's a lot of investigation that needs to take place," Parnham said after the proceeding. "I am not going to discount any aspect until I am thoroughly familiar with what occurred."

Parnham said although funeral services for David Harris are scheduled for tomorrow, he said if he decides his client should not attend she will abide by that.

"The last thing we want to do is create a distraction from the last rites of David Harris," Parnham said.

David Harris' father was in the courtroom with his daughter-in-law and other friends and relatives today.

David Lynn Harris, an orthodontist who had a practice in Clear Lake City and shared a mansion with his wife and sons in Friendswood, died at nearby hospital Wednesday night.

The fatal incident, and the loud and physical confrontation that led to it, occurred in front of the man's 16-year-old daughter from a previous marriage. She was in the Mercedes when it ran over her father.

"That was the saddest part, the young girl," said John Tyler, who had come to the Nassau Bay Hilton for a church service and witnessed the incident.

Clara Harris, 44, who has a dental practice in the Brazoria County town of Lake Jackson, had gone to the hotel at 3000 NASA Road 1 because of suspicions that her husband, also 44, was having an affair, Nassau Bay police said.

Earlier this week she had hired Blue Moon Investigations, a Clear Lake-area private detective agency, to monitor his activities, said an agency employee who wanted her name withheld.

But police were not sure why the woman went to the high-rise hotel near the Johnson Space Center on Wednesday night. The detective agency employee said an investigator had followed David Harris to the Hilton, but had not informed his wife.

Hotel employees called police about 8:50 p.m. after a scuffle broke out in the lobby.

Tyler, 31, who works in the public affairs office at Baylor College of Medicine, said he was in his car with friends after the church service when he heard a woman screaming.

"I ran in and it was a scuffle happening right inside the doorway," he said. "I ran in there, and the woman that is now in custody was beating on another woman and screaming, `You bitch! He's my husband!' "

He said David Harris was trying to pull his wife off the other woman.

"I jumped in with a buddy of mine to get between them when he (Harris) grabbed his wife by the face," Tyler said. "He kind of put his hands across her face and threw her back."

At one point, he said, Clara Harris made an announcement to anyone within earshot.

"She said, `This is Doctor So-and-So and we're here today because he's (having an affair with this woman),' " Tyler said. "There were some more scuffles and then she ripped the (woman's) shirt off, and they were having kind of a tug of war with her shirt. It was nasty."

Eight to 10 hotel employees also tried to intervene, he said.

"(Clara Harris) was very angry, very angry," he said. "Every time they pulled her apart she'd kind of go at her again. While all this was happening the teenage girl was actually hitting the dad with her purse. She was screaming, `I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!' "

Tyler said the scuffle lasted about two minutes and that he then went outside. The girl, who apparently lives out of state, walked out and continued screaming before lying on the ground sobbing, he said.

"We thought at that point that it was over," Tyler said. "What ended up happening was the wife kept screaming at the husband as he was walking off to the back side where he was parked, I guess. She disappeared with the girl into the parking lot in the front."

Others said David Harris was walking to his Chevrolet Suburban, parked on the southwest side of the hotel.

"We were just standing there thinking it was all over. Moments later, we hear the squealing tires and see the Mercedes come up in the parking lot," Tyler said. "A couple of the employees of the hotel were banging on the car windows and hood, saying, `Stop! Stop!' She was actually driving into a crowd of people who were out there.

"She turned, and it was squealing tires. She definitely knew where she was heading."

Tyler said he didn't see the impact, but he heard hotel employees screaming, "`Oh, my God, she's hit him!' "

Nassau Bay police Lt. Joe M. Cashiola said that, after Harris was run over the first time, his wife drove over a median and continued in a circular pattern.

"She jumped the median and ran over him three times," he said.

Tyler said Harris was pinned under a front tire.

"A couple of minutes later the police started to arrive," he said. "I saw the police put the woman in the police car with the young girl just sobbing.

"I saw the daughter lying on the ground, crying uncontrollably and sobbing. It was a high-pitched wail. She had to watch her dad five feet from her, underneath the car, while they're putting her mom in handcuffs. It was obviously a horrible situation."

Tyler said he didn't see the other woman after the scuffle in the lobby.

Cashiola said Clara Harris was calm on the way to police headquarters.

"She looked like she was in shock," he said. "She didn't make any statements at the scene."

Later, during questioning by police, "She did admit doing it but she didn't say why," Cashiola said.

Court records show that David Lynn Harris and Clara L. Suarez were married Feb. 14, 1992, and had twin boys three years ago. The family lives in the Polly Ranch Estates subdivision in Friendswood, where the couple built a palatial home on a wooded corner lot in 1998.

The Galveston County Appraisal District lists the two-story, white brick mansion, with a circular drive and a pool, at a value of $563,870.

The boys were at home with their nanny when their father was killed, Cashiola said.

Employees at David Harris' Space Center Orthodontics office declined to comment Thursday. A sign taped to the door read: "Due to a family tragedy, the office will be closed until further notice."